Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 176345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 882(@200wpm)___ 705(@250wpm)___ 588(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 882(@200wpm)___ 705(@250wpm)___ 588(@300wpm)
“I won’t allow you to soil this ground with blood,” Blaine says, smiling when he sees me looking. “You’re all better than that. C’mon. You were lovers once, right?”
“True,” Milo muses.
“Shut up,” I bark at him.
“Your boy Caleb over here decided to put some very private pictures of Lana and us on the group chat,” Kai growls at Blaine.
“I did not,” Caleb retorts. “And I keep telling them that, but they refuse to believe me.”
Blaine walks out of the Tartarus House and approaches us. “Interesting.” He stops when he reaches me while I still have Caleb in a death grip, ready to pound his head in. “Caleb, you’ll fix this.”
“What? But I didn’t do shi—”
Blaine interrupts him with a single finger. “Just do it.”
“How is he gonna fix this?” I retort. “Everyone’s already seen the picture. Fuck knows the entire internet by now.”
“Turn it into a story,” Blaine says, waving his hand. “Make her look like a victim.”
“What … you mean turn us into predators?” Kai folds his arms and tilts his head. “You think I’m going to agree to that?”
“Your girlfriend must hate you right now, no?” Blaine retorts.
Kai’s eye twitches, but he doesn’t respond.
“Then I guess this is the only chance you’ve got to make it right.”
“Um … is everyone forgetting the dead body in the picture?” Milo pulls out his phone to show it to both Caleb and Blaine.
Kai snatches the phone out of his hand. “Great job, Milo. Now even more people saw it.”
“They already did.” He shrugs.
“Yes, I’m aware of the dead body,” Blaine says. “I’ve seen the picture.”
“People will assume she’s a killer now,” Kai says.
“Not if we make people believe the three masked men in the photo were responsible,” he says, a hint of a smile forming at the left corner of his lip.
“Go on,” Kai says.
“Take your guy off Caleb first.”
Kai throws me a glance, and I hesitantly move off Caleb, lifting him to his feet.
He pats down his shirt and pants and brushes off the remaining dirt. “Asshole.”
“You’ll probably have to pose for another kill with those masks on for it to work, though,” Blaine says.
“Caleb can help with that,” I snarl at him. “I can turn you into a corpse in no time.”
“Fine. I don’t care how, just make it happen,” Kai says. “We have to make the school believe she’s innocent.”
Suddenly, my phone buzzes.
I fish it from my pocket, but when I see the message, all the anger I felt for Caleb is redirected at the phone.
Romeo: You really, really, shouldn’t have come to our club, Nathan … Your girlfriend left quite the mess.
I snap as the phone screen cracks under the weight of a cruel frenzy to tear him from limb to limb.
Romeo: I’m so glad one of my guys managed to catch a glimpse of her face, though. It was easy to find her. Come with money, and I might give her back. If you don’t … I’ll sell her to the highest bidder.
MILO
Nathan’s body is shaking. He howls out loud in front of everyone and sinks to his knees, staring at the words in the chat.
Holy fuck, I have never seen him collapse like that.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask.
“Nathan?” Kai approaches and tries to touch his shoulder, but Nathan grips his wrist and yells, “Romeo took Lana!”
My eyes widen. “What?”
“Oh fuck no,” Kai grits, stealing Nathan’s phone from his hand to check the message himself.
Then he pulls out his own phone. “I’m calling her.”
“It’s no use. Romeo wouldn’t send this if it weren’t true.” Nathan’s hands touch down on the ground, his nails digging into the concrete. “They took her because she saved Ro.”
Little droplets darken the pavement beneath him.
“It’s all my fault. If my parents hadn’t committed fraud, if I’d just saved Ro by myself, if we’d never taken those fucking pictures—”
I grip him by the shoulders and make him look at me. “Don’t blame yourself.”
“She got taken because of me!” he screams.
“We couldn’t protect her because we were too busy arguing over some stupid fucking pictures!” I yell back.
He stares blankly at me for a moment, realizing the fault lies within all of us for not sticking with her even when she hated us the most. And I wrap my arms around him, hugging him tightly. He molds into my embrace, burying his face into my neck.
“We’ll get her back,” I say.
I’ve never seen him this distraught before.
When shit breaks out, he’s always the strong one, the one who wields his rage as a weapon.
But if he can’t gather his anger and use it against them, I’ll be his rock for him.
“I promise.”
Kai
Every beep on the phone makes my heart rate pick up. “She’s not answering. Dammit.”
She’s never not picked up when I called, which means she really is in trouble.
Fuck.
My fist balls at the thought of someone snatching my little kitty. If there’s one thing you don’t do, it’s mess with a guy’s kitty cat.